What Place Will Human Skills Have in the Age of AI?

As technological, economic, social and environmental transformations accelerate, our jobs are changing and our skills are becoming obsolete more quickly. With the democratization of AI, distinctly human capabilities (soft skills) are becoming more essential than ever. What place should they have alongside technical skills (hard skills)? What are the keys to developing them effectively? Christelle Delavaud, Manager of the Personal Development offering at Cegos, shares her insights.

Since the 1980s, behavioural skills have been at the heart of discussions about performance and employability. The arrival of AI is intensifying this trend and redefining the capabilities that will create value in the workplace of tomorrow. By automating repetitive tasks and processing massive amounts of data, generative AI gives us the opportunity to develop new strengths that reinforce our human uniqueness and help us remain in control.

How Is AI Disrupting Our Professional Skills?

“The more tasks such as information search, document summarisation or synthesis reduction are automated, the more we will need to develop the human skills that make the difference,” says Christelle Delavaud, Manager of the Personal Development offering at Cegos. So what will constitute our added value in tomorrow’s labour market?

To answer this question, it is important to understand that the arrival of AI affects soft skills on three levels:

• It reinforces the importance of existing soft skills: critical thinking, questioning and verification, emotional intelligence, adaptability and the ability to learn continuously, creativity and sense-making.
• It transforms certain capabilities into augmented skills: their scope, effectiveness or quality is amplified through the use of AI. However, they remain guided by human judgment and expertise. This is the case, for example, in decision-making.
• It gives rise to new ones: the ability to delegate to AI, the ability to think independently and to remain in control of one’s decisions.

The notion of agency plays a central role in responding to these changes: it is now a differentiating asset in the professional world. “Originally, agency refers to the power to act intentionally by adopting an active stance. In the context of AI use, this notion takes on an even more relevant meaning: it refers to the ability to keep control over what we delegate to it, over our actions and over our choices,” explains Christelle Delavaud.

Hybrid Skills Are Becoming Strategic

Cegos’ 2026 Transformations, Skills and Learning barometer reports that nearly one in four employees believes their skills could become obsolete in the coming years. Should we then abandon our purely operational and technical skills and focus entirely on our soft skills?

“The real challenge is rather to develop both in parallel, without neglecting either one. The goal is to make them coexist in a complementary way. Mastering this imperative and finding the right balance is already a behavioural skill in itself,” says Christelle Delavaud.

Tomorrow, employability will be determined above all by an individual’s ability to mobilise the most relevant strengths depending on the situation and the challenge at hand. Judgment then becomes a fundamental prerequisite for recognising what each skill can contribute and understanding how they can be combined. “The challenge is not to apply a predefined model, but rather to know how to mobilise the right skills, at the right time, and according to the need.”

The Keys to Developing Soft Skills Effectively

Information verification, problem-solving, communication and cooperation: all are transferable skills that are developed primarily through practice, feedback and exposure to varied situations.

As an employee, the first step is therefore to focus on the soft skills that match your context and professional challenges. “The important thing is to practise as much as possible: train in real work situations and measure the impact of your actions to identify what works and what does not. In particular, ask yourself what added value and what comfort these soft skills bring to your day-to-day professional life,” advises Christelle Delavaud.

Here are some concrete actions to develop soft skills sustainably:

• Identify the priority soft skills based on your professional context and challenges
• Create and test the routines that suit you and integrate your new skills into your workflow
• Measure the impact and make adjustments through regular self-debriefs: what works, what helps me optimise?
• Sort through them: keep only the routines that are effective and discard the others
• Cultivate the effort of learning and look for playful experiences that support your learning

What Actions Should Companies Take?

Companies have every interest in ensuring that their employees’ skills remain up to date. Neglecting soft skills development means exposing the organisation to numerous risks:

• Loss of judgment, discernment and critical thinking
• A rise in inaccurate information
• Cognitive dependence on AI
• Weakened human relationships
• Risk of isolation for those who may become trapped in human/AI collaboration
• The erosion of responsibility and delegation of decisions to AI regardless of the stakes
• A widening gap in employability among employees

However, training employees to develop their soft skills must be anticipated and requires a well-thought-out action plan. It is particularly advisable to start with the essential soft skills: critical thinking, judgment, emotional intelligence and the ability to learn how to learn. “It is important to keep in mind that not all employees have the same level of knowledge on these topics, and that their needs may also vary both over time and depending on their challenges.”

Supporting the Transformation of Work

Committing to support the transformation of work is the guarantee of benefiting from employees who are aware of the tasks that are bound to evolve, those they can delegate, the skills they need to acquire and the specifically human value they bring. “It is also a way to ensure that everyone uses AI responsibly: knowing how to identify its biases, protect data and understand issues related to confidentiality and intellectual property.”

Young professionals are particularly affected by the automation of basic tasks that were once assigned to them: deprived of these types of assignments, they are quickly expected to demonstrate strategic skills from the very beginning of their careers. Organisations that choose to support and train them to secure their professional future will reap many benefits.

Training teams to develop their soft skills is therefore becoming a key investment in workforce and skills management. Indeed, employees who succeed today in developing sought-after and valued human capabilities will be the most likely to advance their careers and take on the new roles that require these transferable skills.

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